House GOP makes digital push

Working together, for example, the House in 2012-13 adopted new transparency standards that allowed for the bulk data release of the U.S. Code, as well as legislation and floor summaries — a critical change that has helped fuel the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenCongress.org and other third-party sites that can turn the information into a more user-friendly experience. Members can also now bring their tablets, smartphones and other electronic devices onto the floor. And they can use their official funds to buy ads on Facebook and Twitter so long as they are designed to increase their followers, something that’s still prohibited in the Senate.

The GOP leadership team deserves credit “for engaging in a variety of positive developments with regard to new media usage in the House,” said Faiz Shakir, digital director for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who previously held the same job for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

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“I think in general some of these developments have even outpaced where the Senate has been able to go,” Shakir said. He noted Speaker John Boehner has the advantage of largely setting the House rules for technology changes, whereas the Senate process remains under review in the Rules and Administration Committee.

To be sure, both parties also are in an arms race trying to use technology to their own advantage.

House Democrats concluded their fifth annual social media contest Monday, which counts new followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Top honors went to Reps. John Lewis of Georgia, Joaquín Castro of Texas and Dan Kildee of Michigan. A GOP competition with different rules (members go head-to-head in an NCAA-bracket-style tournament) ends Sunday.

Boehner and his three top lieutenants — Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and McMorris Rodgers — also personally debated the best Twitter hashtag to use when rolling out one of their early 2013 messages during budget talks, settling on #NoBudgetNoPay.

“When we’re around the leadership table … there’s now an expectation that social media is going to be a part of our communication efforts,” McMorris Rodgers said.

Republican leadership in April launched a new version of its website — gop.gov — that takes swings at the Obama administration over its management of the IRS, veterans’ health care and the economy.

In-house digital equipment allows Republican members to try to look their best: Rep. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, a four-time cancer survivor who recently lost more than 20 pounds, asked McMorris Rodgers’ staff earlier this month to snap some new photographs of him that can go up on his official website. Lawmakers can do multiple takes on GOP-leadership organized digital videos before hitting the send button. Recent shoots include Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada speaking in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois outside the Capitol for a Fourth of July video.

“We try to keep it a little bit more than me just regurgitating something they might have heard on CNN earlier in the week,” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) said in an interview after taping his weekly YouTube message, this time on instability in Iraq.

More than 1,000 House GOP staffers have been trained over the past year to use different digital technologies, including Photoshop and social media metrics. One regular in the Cannon office is Kyle Buckles, a deputy press secretary for Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), who recently got a half-dozen retweets after posting a graphic and July 2, 1776, quote from John Adams on Twitter.

“That’s big for us,” Buckles said earlier this month while working on a digital graphic challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed climate change rules. “We don’t have a very Twitter-heavy universe in our district, but I’m hoping to change that.”

While Democrats credit Republicans with taking some leadership on technology — and giving them props for staying on message when using social media — they also aren’t willing to cede the GOP too much ground.

After all, Pelosi in May 2006 was the first member of Congress to launch a YouTube account, six months before she had even become speaker of the House. Democrats have their own digital studio in the Longworth House Office Building. And while the House Republicans will be launching an intranet system later this year, the Democrats got one up in early 2009 that’s already onto its third version. That system, used by more than 2,000 aides, includes a staff directory, calendar and a legislative correspondence library.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) said it’s “just signs of the times” that the GOP has adopted some of the institutional technology changes while in the majority since January 2011. “I think if the Democrats were in charge of the institution,” he said, “we’d have moved even faster.”